Charles Leclerc’s crash in FP1 complicated Ferrari’s plans in Montreal, as on Friday the team had to rely solely on an eighth-placed Lewis Hamilton, who also lagged in race pace. However, Charles’s speed before the crash — which also cost him FP2 — leaves some hope that there’s still room to recover.
Charles Leclerc’s Friday in Montreal lasted only ten laps. A mistake made on the entry into Turn 3 led to a heavy impact with the barriers, damaging the left side of the car. When the car returned to the pits, Ferrari’s mechanics made a bitter discovery: the impact had caused the left wheel to damage the chassis, ending Leclerc’s chances of taking part in FP2 and forcing the team to rebuild the car around a new monocoque.
“My mistake unfortunately had serious consequences,” Charles Leclerc said. “I’m sorry for the team because we couldn’t complete either the first or the second session. Apart from that, I felt comfortable in the car today, which is a positive, so I don’t think what happened will affect the rest of the weekend.”
The third practice session — and especially qualifying — will reveal how much Charles Leclerc’s error will weigh on Ferrari’s weekend. It won’t be easy for Charles to make up for the lost track time on a circuit where driver confidence builds lap after lap, and in FP2 Ferrari’s engineers had to rely only on Lewis Hamilton’s long run, which produced far from encouraging results.
Lewis Hamilton’s pace was on par with Pierre Gasly’s Alpine (both using medium tyres), with an average gap of half a second per lap compared to the benchmark times set by George Russell and Lando Norris. “The car was nice to drive,” Hamilton commented, “but we’re lacking a bit of pace right now, and we experienced graining in the long runs.” His qualifying simulation in FP2 also fell short, with the Briton ending the session in eighth, half a second off the fastest time.
It was a far from positive Friday for the Scuderia, made even more frustrating considering how comfortable Leclerc appeared at the start of FP1. The time Charles set on his eighth lap — when the track was still dirty and had little rubber — ended up being the tenth fastest of the session, confirming solid potential. That adds to the regret, not just for missing out on assessing outright performance, but also for losing crucial long run data.
Ferrari will need the best version of Charles Leclerc to turn the weekend around, and the Monegasque driver has much to make up for. The mistake wasn’t just a small slip-up, but a poor judgment call in a moment that wasn’t even high-pressure. Had he allowed the car to run wide — as other drivers did when caught out in the same spot — he’d have only lost one flying lap. Now, however, the risk is compromising the entire weekend.
